NFL Week 14 Bad Beats: Jets Bury Under Bettors
Buccaneers Give Atlanta Backers a Tough Loss
Another week in the NFL, another week of several tough losses for some unfortunate bettors. While there wasn’t anything as painful as the last play safety in the Army vs Navy game that affected the total, there were a few outcomes that were hard to swallow. Let’s take a look at week 14 matchups.
The NFL scores don’t always tell the true story of how a game played out. Many times, it’s a fluke play or a bad break that decides the betting outcome of a game. We’ll take a look at several of those in NFL Week 14 bad beats.
Jets vs Texans Under 33 
The weather was rough in the New York area on Sunday, making the under 33 a popular play among the sharp bettors. Bettors had to be feeling pretty good when the teams went to the locker room at halftime scoreless.
But the New York Jets scored touchdowns on their first two possessions of the second half to go ahead 14-0. A fumble on their third possession helped lead to Houston scoring its lone points of the game. But the Jets answered with another touchdown to make it a 21-6 game with 9:27 remaining in the game.
The Houston Texans went for it on 4th-and-2 from their 33-yard line and turned the ball over on downs. The Jets lost a yard, but Greg Zuerlein booted a 51-yard field goal to make it 24-6 with 6:51 left in the game.
But Houston turned the ball over on downs once again, this time on its 30. The Jets went backwards, but Zuerlein drilled a 55-yard field goal to make it 27-6 with 4:30 remaining.
But the Texans weren’t done turning the ball over on downs, doing so once again on their 26. For the third straight time, the Jets couldn’t pick up a first down to run some time off the clock and lost yardage. So Zuerlein was called on again and made a 44-yard field goal with 1:08 remaining to send the game over the total and give some bettors one of the NFL Week 14 bad beats.
It was a tough loss for the Texans, who could have moved into a first-place tie with the Jaguars in the NFL standings. Instead, Houston is in a second-place tie with the Colts and will see its playoff and Super Bowl odds drop a bit.
Atlanta Falcons -1.5
The Atlanta Falcons hosted the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with a chance to build a two-game lead over the Bucs in the standings. The two are pretty evenly matched in the NFL team rankings, so it figured to be a good game.
Tampa Bay led 12-10 and scored a touchdown to make it 19-10 before the Atlanta Falcons got the offense going. The Falcons made it 19-17 with 11:10 to go in the game with a touchdown run.
Tampa Bay responded with a field goal, but Desmond Ridder’s touchdown run put the Falcons ahead 23-22. Atlanta converted the 2-point attempt to lead 25-22 with 3:23 remaining.
The Bucs got the ball back and converted on fourth down when Rachaad White recovered his own fumble. Tampa Bay converted on 3rd-and-10 from the Atlanta 47 that got them into field goal range. But Baker Mayfield hit Cade Otton with an 11-yard TD pass with 31 seconds remaining.
Ridder connected with Drake London on the final play of the game, where he was stopped on Tampa Bay’s 3-yard line.
The Falcons outgained Tampa Bay 434-290, but two turnovers in the first half led to nine Tampa Bay points. Kicker Younghoe Koo, who entered the game 24 of 25 on field goals, missed twice. It was a game the Atlanta Falcons could have easily won. But it turned into one of the NFL Week 14 bad beats.
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